


A Boy Walks Off a Rooftop

by 20Zvorak17



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon-level Codependency, Graphic Description of Corpses, Suicide, Which is ridiculously so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-13 19:36:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11766903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/20Zvorak17/pseuds/20Zvorak17
Summary: Sam has never been happy. Perhaps it's all the moving around or the lack of support from their Dad or maybe because Sam has never had parents but by the time he's fourteen all he wants to do is escape.





	1. Chapter 1

Sam is eight when he realizes he's discontent. He doesn't have that word for it yet. Angry is the closest he can get. He starts to lash out. At teachers and their Dad until Dean finally explains that if the school pays too much attention to their situation they'll be taken into foster care. While Sam's not too upset about the idea of leaving Dad, he nearly loses it when he learns that he and Dean would most likely be separated.

And Dean, just gone thirteen will probably go to a boy's home-Sam knows about those. He doesn't know that places like Sonny's boys home exist, but he's heard about Level 4 homes from some of the older kids; small towns sometimes allowing him to take high school classes means he's talked to kids that live in those places and only because nobody wants a teenage boy.

He can't let that happen to Dean.

 

He's thirteen the first time he hears the term escapism. The word feels like failure, like giving up so when the health teacher says 'drugs are all about escapism' he realizes that he needs a change. New friends and a new approach to getting away from all this.

 

Fourteen and he runs away for two glorious weeks, calling it freedom. He ends up in a place called Flagstaff; he's even got a dog. He names it Bones and cries a little, albeit quietly and without notice, when Dean finds him and makes him take it to a humane society. He cries a little more when he realizes Dean got whooped with a belt for Sam's escape. "That's crap!" He tells his father, who's never listened and won't start now, "Dean was at work, making money, because  _you_ couldn't be bothered to leave enough!" Sam gets whooped for his insolence.

He doesn't cry for that.

 

Two months later he takes up self-harm, which at least doesn't impair his judgement like the habits of his early teenage years. He tries a blade at first, but he can't cease the bleeding in time for the vampire hunt and if he wasn't trained so well the thing would've gone pear-shaped. Following that fiasco he picks up a Zippo lighrer. Dean catches him at it shortly thereafter and when the older brother cries, the younger gives it up on the spot. 

 

(And now there's nothing to keep  _those thoughts_ at bay.)

 

They're squatting in an abandoned hotel, shut down but not yet sold, and Sam is standing on the roof. It isn't the first time he's been up here, nor the first time he's contemplating taking a few more steps, right off the edge of the building. He has accepted the truth now. He's not discontent or angry. He's tired and depressed and, he admits to himself, suicidal. He needs out of this life, needs it now, and knows no other way. It's draining. He's responsible for his mother's death and that makes him the precious thing that Mary died for, that must be protected at all costs, while simultaneously someone John can't even look in the eye. His Dad loves him, okay, that's not the question. And if-- _if--_ Sam stepped off the roof he knows that Dad and Dean would be sad. Always on the outside observing, Sam knows they'd still have each other. That Dad would rather have Dean than Sam anyway.

It would be easy, as easy as breathing. He's a bunch of stories up and a running jump is all that he needs in order to do it. He could breathe in deep, count to three, push off the back leg and be free.

Tonight, his excuse for not doing just that is that his team is going to state next weekend and as star forward he can't leave them hanging. Yesterday it was that his Latin is the best and Dad's still on the outs with Bobby. 

He tells himself that Stanford's only three years away. He's so close and he's done this before, many times over the past months: just set his jaw and squared his shoulders and questioned himself, "In the scheme of a lifetime what's three more years?" He doesn't answer himself, because if he's honest the answer must be  _eternity_.

He knows, too, that part of his condition is physical, that it's a hormone imbalance. Too much serotonin and not enough dopamine. He consoles himself with that, on his better days. It's tangible, chemical, he isn't  _broken._ He holds onto that with both hands, nails stubbornly dug into it.

He argues with their father; takes his punishments with stoicism. He laughs and smiles and says all the right things. 

But alone on this rooftop, under stars and over asphalt, he's not going to pretend everything is okay.

He's seen so much, done so much. Dean's done more, but Dean's stronger and better. Without even noticing, Sam steps closer to the edge.. It's a dangerous game he's playing. Every time he comes up to the roof the blacktop is pure temptation, like women for Dean, like whiskey for John, and one day he'll succumb to it like the Israelites did to each of their temptations. Regardless of his initial reaction to escapism, his cold turkey and the withdrawal he passed off as the flu--and maybe he didn't, maybe Dean just allowed him to--Sam is eventually going to fail. To fall.

It might as well be now.

 _But the tournament!_ And it's in Dean's voice that Sam's self-preservation cries, which surprises Sam exactly not at all. His phone rings.

"Hello?" 

"Hey, Sammy." It's Dean. Somehow that is equally unsurprising, "hey this hunt is going to go on a little longer. I thought I might come home, though. Caleb and Bobby are here, so."

It's a genuine offer. If Sam says, "Yeah, please do," Dean  _will_. But Sam can hear that he doesn't want to.

"Don't worry about it," he answers instead, "you never know with a Wendigo."

"Okay." Dean says even though there's something in Sam's voice that twists his gut into knots, "I'll see you in a couple days?"

"Mm," he hums noncommittally and does not agree, "Be careful."

"Will do. You, too."

"Hey!" Sam says before Dean can hang up because this is important. "I mean it, stay safe." And there's a weird note to the way, Sam says that. It's somber, final, "I love you, De."

 

 

Something's very,  _very_ wrong. Sam hasn't told either of them 'I love you' since he was ten and he hasn't called him De since he was able to connect the N to the first syllable. "Hey, Dad," Dean says casually, because it's no good if they're both panicking over Sam, "since there's three of you and I'm still a bit inexperienced I'm going to let you guys take care of this. You know, make sure Sam hasn't burned to hotel down or something." He smiles and John chuckles and only Dean is aware that he's not joking. 

It's a six hour drive, but Dean makes it in three, two and a half hours too late.

 

 

Sam falls sixteen stories.

 

 

"It was quick," the ME promises them both, "on impact. He never felt a thing. It's not much, but he didn't suffer."

He didn't suffer? His legs had been splayed at an impossible angle, his head entirely smashed. Blood and brains and bleach-white skull fragments were splattered on the pavement; bits of his spine were sticking out. His vertebrae are severed in places, shattered in others. One arm had been beneath his body. But he'd died on impact; didn't feel a thing.

Of course, he had jumped, so clearly,  _fucking clearly,_ he had suffered--had been suffering for years.

 

 

One week later, Dean eats a bullet.

 

 

No one is surprised.

 

 


	2. Alternate Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A happier ending to the story

Castiel has been given his marching orders. He does not understand why they are what they are. As a garrison leader, however, it is not his place to question. 

He knows, peripherally, that the Winchester boys are important. They are The Vessels and they must live, both of them. He does not realize exactly how important, how dependent this plan is upon the Winchester Brothers until Uriel specifically informs him that he is to undo what has occurred. Castiel does not often dabble in his ability to manipulate time. He, like his brother Zacariah, finds the malleability of reality sufficient for his uses. That's not the case here. Castiel does not question but he wonders, very briefly why they had not resurrected the abomination immediately. Certainly that would have prevented Dean's suicide, easing stress for everyone. He cannot be satisfied only resetting the week; it will occur the same over again. Simple manipulation he does not feel will be enough either, convincing Dean to return to the hotel one day prior or even making the asphalt into a giant trampoline with more cushion and less bounce each time he lands will merely deter him. Castiel's existence is not so leisurely that he can spend so much time preventing Sam Winchester's suicide that the boy will finally give up the idea. It would be easier if he needed only account for the actions of the youngest Winchester whose death had been the catalyst of Dean's, but he was forced to contend with three impossibly stubborn humans.

Calling up his grace, he moves fluidly through time, a week and a day to the past. He will entreat all three men. He does not have limited attempts but he wishes nothing more than to complete his mission quickly and return home.

He appears to John first, at a time when the man is sleeping. In a dream the man will have almost no choice but to listen. "My name is Castiel. I am an angel of the Lord. Your youngest son is going to commit suicide tomorrow and your elder son will follow him. You must send Dean home to protect Sam."

"Christo." John Winchester intoned with narrowed eyes, relenting when the eyes did not flash black. "My Sam wouldn't do that."

"I came backwards in time to prevent it, Mr. Winchester. I know that he would; he has."

"Get out of my head," John tells the thing that looks human. He doesn't believe it. Sam wouldn't have told him if he felt that way, true enough, but John thinks Sam would tell Dean and Dean would be overprotective. He never would've come on this hunt.

 

 

 

 

Castiel goes to Dean next. Dean, who he was watched grow from infancy, who Castiel has grown very fond of. The young man is awake and puts him through strange tests-makes him drink a glass of water, cut his hand with a knife and, as his father had, mutters Christo at him.

"I must implore you to return to the hotel where your brother is residing. He's going to jump off of a roof if you aren't there to stop him."

The 19 year old, all anger and suspicion raises his gun. Before he can fire it, Castiel has disappeared. 

 

 

"Hello, Sam."

The boy jumps, spinning to face him wildly. The Christo is repeated. 

"None of your tricks will affect me, Sam Winchester." Castiel informs him. "I am an angel of the Lord."

Sam's face transformed from fear to awe, anger to amazement. "I...really? You...you're an angel? Wow. I always knew it was all real. Dad and Dean don't think so, but I always did. Can...can I help you with something?"

"No." He will never need help from the Boy with the Demon Blood and he'd thought he would feel more disgust at the sight. Other than a few inky black spots ringed with yellow the soul is bright, beautiful, a shame to waste. Suddenly, Castiel  _wants_ to save Sam Winchester. "Sam, I'm here to help you. You are hurt and saddened." Enochian has a word for what Sam is and it's lost in translation. The word basically means such profound emotional agony that one is torn between killing himself or all others; pain which will end or be ended by force...Enochian is the language of souls, of essence, and it is impossible to explain what Sam feels in English as a result. "You musn't kill yourself, Sam. You are needed. Dean needs you. Without you he will feel purposeless. He will die without you. But moreover, we need you Sam. The angels. There are plans for you. You have to live."

 

 

Dean comes home without calling, a day and a half earlier than he would have, the vision he'd nearly shot at affecting him.

Sam hasn't been up on the roof since the angel appeared to him.

For the first time in years the hug properly and neither of them dies.

**Author's Note:**

> If you guys want a pleasanter ending, let me know. I'll write it.


End file.
